LitPDX seeks to amplify marginalized voices, and welcomes all, their ideas, their events, and their words.

For details regarding specific events please contact the organizers or venues. If you are an organizer or venue and would like to reach out to us please feel free to contact us or submit an event using our submission form. We’d love to hear from you!

Fall 2019: Grief and the Lyric Essay

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland

It can be a challenge to access grief, not to mention represent it in word and forms, yet writers like Claudia Rankine, Ann Carson, and Maggie Nelson pull it off beautifully and in wildly different ways. We will try different ways into the conversation with grief, first through reading other writers, then in our notebooks. Writing exercises will allow you to explore memory, specifically as it can be accessed through the body. You will leave with a solid start into a new piece of writing or a fresh take on an older draft. About the instructor:Wendy Noonan’s poetry has been featured in 2River View, Poor Claudia, Muzzle, Painted Bride, and Crazy Horse. Recently, her creative nonfiction was shortlisted for PRISM international’s writing contest. Wendy is…

$135

Wendy Ortiz – The Nonfictional Body: Sept. 14

The Corporeal Writing Center 510 SW 3rd Ave #101, Portland

When: Saturday September 14th, 2019:: 10:00 - 4:00 Where: The Corporeal Center; 510 SW 3rd Ave, Portland, OR 97210 Cost: $300 This workshop will explore the potential of creative nonfiction as a vehicle for experimentation, meaning, and change at various strata of the social fabric. Using the metaphor of the body when it comes into contact with these strata—be it personal relationship, relationship to structures, streets, cities and natural settings, states, territory, and ultimately, the earth as a whole—we will investigate how creative nonfiction “works,” vis-a-vis the genre/body’s response. A variety of forms will be used as examples on our investigation, including brief excerpts from select blogs, chapbooks, journals, storytelling in legal scholarship, and more. Wendy C. Ortiz is the author of Excavation: A Memoir, Hollywood Notebook, and the dreamoir Bruja. In…

$300

Fall 2019: Writing the Memoir 9 month Intensive

Literary Arts 925 SW Washington Street, Portland

This class for experienced and dedicated writers meets 28 times over the course of 9 months. The class begins in September, with the goal of finishing a complete draft of a memoir by June. Participants do not need to be published writers; however, they should have some experience with elements of memoir, including character, setting, dialogue and scene, and have a clear project in mind that they will devote nine months to. They should also be comfortable in a workshop setting, giving and receiving criticism on works in progress. Students who have taken Memoir Boot Camp one or more times at Literary Arts should find this class an appropriate next step. Memoir Boot Camp is not a pre-requisite. This class is specifically designed for writers…

$1200